Dust Collector

thompsor

Member
Would anyone happen to have recommendations for a scene shop dust collector? Is there already a thread somewhere? TIA.
 
Try searching for "Dust Collection" and or "Shop Setup". there are a number of threads where this is discussed. Also the book "Dust Collection Basics" is a MUST HAVE for planning out your system. It has great recommendations on Sizes and types it stresses several safety points like remembering to ground everything. It also has a lot of cool math you can use to help figure out ducting sizes and CFM requirements for each tool in a shop. I highly recommend it.

And, BTW, Welcome aboard!
 
Oh thanks for the book recommendation!
 
For my home shop dust collection I use a broom and a dustpan once a week. Works great and is the cheapest dust collection option I've found.

At work we use a powermatic pm1900tx. Only complaint is that for some reason we kept burning through remote controls. Eventually we stopped buying them and wired in a threeway switch on the table saw and over near the other machines.

I often wonder about the hype of dust collection. People comparing machines based on whether they filter out 95% or 98% of micron sized particles... seems over the top. you're in a shop, things are gonna get dirty. If you're sensitive to dust, wear a mask...
 
I often wonder about the hype of dust collection.

I will say it depends on the size of your shop (production) as well as the size of your shop (physical space). Coming from an industrial shop with 5 table saws, cabinet makers and a whole bunch of planing going on, on a given day we'd empty our udders every day and have a massive amount of dust collected. 2-4 cubic yards depending on how busy we were.

kind of pointless though when we're using gallons of bondo on scenic elements and belt sanding things in, covering everything on our main deck with an inch of dust.
 
I will say it depends on the size of your shop (production) as well as the size of your shop (physical space). Coming from an industrial shop with 5 table saws, cabinet makers and a whole bunch of planing going on, on a given day we'd empty our udders every day and have a massive amount of dust collected. 2-4 cubic yards depending on how busy we were.

kind of pointless though when we're using gallons of bondo on scenic elements and belt sanding things in, covering everything on our main deck with an inch of dust.
Bondo is a whole 'nother noxious can of worms.
 
Try searching for "Dust Collection" and or "Shop Setup". there are a number of threads where this is discussed. Also the book "Dust Collection Basics" is a MUST HAVE for planning out your system. It has great recommendations on Sizes and types it stresses several safety points like remembering to ground everything. It also has a lot of cool math you can use to help figure out ducting sizes and CFM requirements for each tool in a shop. I highly recommend it.

And, BTW, Welcome aboard!

Thank you for the help! I will add the book to our library!
 
Yup the Harbor Freight DC is well known as a great value. It works well on a short duct to one tool at a time. If you want a central system to use with multiple tools simultaneously then not so much. A lot of people hot rod them with more efficient and smaller-particle filter bags or canisters and homemade Thien baffle separators. I only did a filter bag upgrade on mine and I so far haven't had issues with it clogging too fast without the Thien baffle, which reduces how much air you can move.

I use the Harbor Freight for my table saw and use a Porter Cable and a Festool dust extractor for the chop saw, router, circ saw, sanders, all the tools with small dust ports. I need to get a hood on my chop saw, but other than that I'm pretty happy with the setup for a small/medium shop. The Festool and Fein extractors are in my opinion worth every penny if you also make sure you choose your tools with dust extraction in mind. Especially awesome for sanding and routing.
 
Digression: to learn a lot about the physics / engineering of dust collection, go down this youtube rabbit hole:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back